HOW TO FIND THE AUSABLE RIVER CENTER

The AuSable River Center - a building on the move!

The 76x30-foot, two-story cedar structure that houses the AuSable River Center was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939 to serve as the regional headquarters of the Michigan Conservation Department (now the Department of Natural Resources). The building went through several reincarnations before it went into disuse in the 1980s. It sat empty at the corner of Lake and Second streets in downtown Roscommon a forlorn but beautiful sight until 1998. At that time, a planned expansion of the county jail put the building at jeopardy of being demolished. A committee, which soon became the board of the AuSable River Center, formed to save it from demolition and raised the funding necessary to move the building stone fireplace and all two blocks east to the parking lot of the Roscommon Metropolitan Recreation Authority, the umbrella organization for the committee.

The building was moved once more if you can believe it! in May 2006 when county executives decided to build a large addition to the nearby Roscommon County Courthouse. It hit the road, over and under many utility wires, for five blocks, coming to rest at its current location, in the corner of a parking lot owned by the Village of Roscommon, across the street from the Roscommon Cinema. The new location gives the building a higher downtown profile and looks great in the spot that was once home to Roscommons railroad depot.

The AuSable River Center is located at 211 N. Main Street in Roscommon.

As you travel through Roscommon on the I-75 Business Loop (also named M-76 and North 5th Street), turn onto Brooks Street at the BP gas station. You can't miss the large white building with the green shutters on your left!

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